


serendipity

by isdoe



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff, Instant Connection, Meet-Cute, Robbaery Discord Server Holiday Exchange 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:14:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22233889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isdoe/pseuds/isdoe
Summary: Margaery has never been one to believe in Fate, but this is the story of how Fate sent her so many signals she had to finally listen.
Relationships: Robb Stark/Margaery Tyrell
Comments: 1
Kudos: 42





	serendipity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rebeccavis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebeccavis/gifts).



> This is pure fluff. Just fluff. When I started this, I decided I wanted to write something that would feel as if Lifetime and Netflix paired up to do a holiday romcom starring Vanessa Hudgens.

Making her way through a busy airport in the middle of what could potentially be a winter storm for the records does not exactly put Margaery Tyrell in the holiday spirit.  
  
A sad situation because she _loves_ the end of the year holidays. It’s the only time of the year when all of her family is able to gather in one place for more than a few days, and now, thanks to a winter storm that came out of nowhere after weeks of unseasonably mild weather, she’s close to missing out on it.  
  
“Well, if you get stranded over there, look on the bright side,” Loras tells her when she calls him after checking her bags. She waits to hear the rest of that sentence as she fails to see what silver lining she could find if she ends up stuck at some airport away from her family during the holidays. “You’re in the state with the best Christmas tree farm.”

Margaery huffs. “Did you just look that up on the internet?”  
  
“They show Christmas movies and you sit on hay bales while sipping on hot cocoa,” Loras says, clearly ignoring her question and also clearly reading all of it from somewhere. “The hot cocoa is free, of course. They even provide free gifts for your kids.”  
  
“My invisible kids will be very happy about that when I end up at this farm after my flight is canceled,” she tells him, still hurrying along the terminal to get to her departure gate.

“They also give you homemade cookies. Even Santa stops by to take photos in this winter wonderland. And get this,” Loras continues and Margaery knows he’s just teasing her. “It doubles down as a wedding venue.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’ll be sure to tell my invisible boyfriend all about it.” Loras laughs and keeps going on about the farm. Margaery tunes him out as she looks down at her ticket to make sure she’s going in the right direction. It’s because she’s not looking that when she rounds a corner she immediately bumps into someone. She manages to catch her phone before it falls, but the other person is not so lucky and something drops to the floor. She crouches down to help.

“Oh gods, I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking--”

“No, I’m sorry it was my fault, I was--”

Their hands touch as they both go for the same item and she finally looks up and meets the bluest eyes she’s ever seen. 

“Hi,” they both say at the same time. 

Their hands are still touching over whatever it is he dropped and she almost laughs. Hasn’t she watched this moment many times in movies? And hasn't she always laughed and said nothing like that happens in real life?  
  
Before she can say anything she looks down and her heart stops as her eyes land on what she’s holding. 

It’s a book. 

It’s a copy of her book. 

When their eyes meet again, he finally looks at the ground, seemingly embarrassed to have been caught staring at her, and gently pulls out the book from beneath her hand to pick it up. She gets to her feet and he does the same, her eyes moving to the book in his hand again.

“I’m sorry, I was walking and wasn’t looking,” he says, his accent telling her he’s a local. 

“It’s all right,” tearing her eyes away from the book she looks at him again. “I wasn’t looking either.” She looks down at her phone and sees she accidentally hung up on her brother. Might as well, she shouldn’t have been on the phone in the first place. She suddenly remembers she has a flight to catch and she looks up. “Okay, well, I gotta run.”  
  
“Yes, of course.” For a moment he looks like he might say something else, but then seems to think better of it and with a small wave of his hand as a goodbye, he disappears around the corner.  
  
  


****

As it turns out, she was not going in the right direction. 

After ending up at the wrong gate with very little time to spare, she all but runs to make it to her departure gate as soon as possible. This mistake does nothing to brighten up her mood, and neither does the announcement that comes on just as she’s arriving at where her ticket says she’s supposed to be.

**Attention passengers on Delta flight 404. The departure gate has been changed. The flight will now be leaving from Gate 10.**

“I was just there,” she grumbles under her breath. That is where she had ended up by mistake. She looks at the flight information monitors and her only consolation is that so far her flight hasn’t been marked as delayed.

So it’s just her luck that when she approaches Gate 10, there is another announcement.

**This is an announcement for passengers on Delta flight 404. The flight has been delayed due to bad weather conditions. The flight crew has arrived, but the ground crew is still deicing the aircraft. Our new departure time is 10:45 AM.**

She looks down at her phone and sees that’s just one hour from now. That’s not too bad, she tries to tell herself, but she already feels her hopes plummeting. The storm will only be getting worse, she might just as well accept that she’s not going anywhere. 

Still, she looks for an empty seat in the waiting area and when she sits, she finds she’s right across the stranger with the blue eyes from earlier. He glances at her, then does a double take when he recognizes her. It’s kind of cute the way his face lights up that she forgets her predicament for the moment. 

“Hi,” they both say at the same time again. She laughs and he bites down on his lip in a poor attempt to keep from smiling. 

“This is your flight?” he gestures towards the direction of the departing gate.  
  
“Flight 404, that’s me. Yours too?”  
  
He nods. “I don’t think any flights are going to be leaving today though.”  
  
She groans. “Don’t say that, I am trying to stay optimistic here.”  
  
He laughs softly. “I’m sorry, but have you looked outside the windows? You can barely see out there. It’s just a matter of time before they announce the flight is delayed.”  
  
She sits back on the chair, closing her eyes and feeling defeated. She knows he’s right. No one in their right mind would fly out in this weather. Right then and there, she decides that if in fact she ends up stranded here, she’ll go to that Christmas tree farm just take a picture of it to Loras.

After a moment she opens her eyes and catches him staring at her. He quickly looks away, but she still manages to see the slight blush spreading across his cheeks.

Not wanting to embarrass him she keeps herself from smiling and pretends she does not see it. “I’m Margaery,” she finally says and that makes him look at her again. He really does have the bluest eyes she’s ever seen.  
  
“Robb,” he offers his hand. She smiles as she takes it. Unbidden, butterflies she has not felt since her adolescence come alive in her stomach. It does not help that they hold hands longer than a simple handshake between strangers should take.  
  
Almost as if he’s come to the same realization, he lets go of her hand and both sit in silence for a moment until he speaks again.  
  
“You know… they sell coffee right over there,” he points somewhere behind her. “Would you...that is, of course, if you want-- only if you want, of course...would you like…”  
  
She decides to take pity on him. “Yes, I would love some coffee.”

  
  


****

Margaery finds conversation comes easy with Robb from flight 404. Once they both have their coffee and sit on a bench near the gate to be able to hear any announcements, they strike up a conversation as if they were old friends reuniting. He tells her he helps with the family business, that he has two brothers and two sisters, all younger than he is. He tells her about each of them and she smiles as she listens to him talk. He’s a family man, that’s more than obvious. He sounds like he loves all his siblings dearly. He also confirms what she suspected earlier-- he is a local, and this winter storm is nothing to him. Last year, he shares with her, they got almost thirty-two inches of snow. It won’t get that bad this year, he tries to assure her when he sees the look on her face, though they both know he can’t know what for sure.

She tells him she traveled here because of business, that she was meant to leave a week early, but that because of meetings not going as well as she had hoped for in the beginning, she had been forced to change her flight so that it would leave today. She would be home with her family now, ready to celebrate the holidays. She tells him about her favorite family tradition-- giving each other silly presents.  
  
When he asks what she considers a silly present she smiles. “Well, you see, when I was a little girl I wanted to be a queen. I wanted a crown, the castle, all of it. It was a phase I eventually grew out of, but two years ago my brother gave me this fake deed to a castle. It has my name and everything. I was stupidly excited about it,” she admits with a laugh. “I framed it and it hangs on one of my apartment’s walls.” She looks at him and smiles. “Told you it was silly.”  
  
“It doesn’t sound silly to me,” he tells her, and the way he’s looking at her tells her he means what he says next. “I think it’s sweet. It’s cute. You’re cute.” 

She smiles. “It should be ‘You’re cute, Your Majesty.’ I am Queen Margaery, after all. I have a castle, you know.”

He laughs. “You’re right. I apologize, Your Majesty. So tell me, what else did you want as a little girl?”  
  
She thinks for a moment and then she smiles. “I wanted a moon rock. I used to spend part of my nights just staring out at the moon when it was out wishing I had at least a tiny part of it.”

He smiles and though he’s teasing her, his tone is gentle when he asks, “Do you always wish for impossible things?” 

“Yes, it’s one of my talents.”

They skirt around some of the gaps in their stories: What is the family business? What is it that she does? Do they have significant others? That last one is something she’s suddenly desperate to ask but she holds herself back. It would require her to be more impulsive and romantic than she’s ever been in her life. 

She does finally work up the courage to ask about the book. He looks excited when she mentions it and tells her he doesn’t know anyone who has read it. The author, he says, only published a limited number of volumes and then disappeared. There is very little information about her. 

She knows all this, of course. She made sure to publish under a different name, that it was impossible it would be traced back to her. Writing poetry had once been one of her passions, an escape, something she did out of love for life and the dreams she used to have. Somewhere along the way, she had lost all inspiration. She often wonders if she’ll ever get it back. 

“I’ve read the whole book so many times I think I know all the poems by heart now. Every reading brings a new meaning depending on when and where I read it. I’ve never read anything that’s made me feel so many things at once. Have you read her poems?” 

He’s trying not to sound too eager, she can tell, and she finds it strange and endearing that he seems to love all the poems in her book. And she knows he does because when he slides the book across the table to her, she opens it and finds small notes all over the margins. He’s read them all many times, each time leaving different comments. She feels like she’s been caught peeking at something she shouldn’t have when she reads a note that details what one of the poems made him feel. 

She closes the book and slides it over to him again. “I have, yes.” That is all she offers and he seems disappointed, but suddenly she does not want to lie to him, and that is exactly what she would be doing if she kept up the conversation pretending not to know anything else about the author. She’s still lying to him somehow, but she stops herself from thinking too much and quickly changes the conversation.

They finish their coffee and get tea next, and by the time the next announcement comes telling them their flight has been delayed again she doesn’t even mind that much. Especially when he mentions the airport has an ice-skating rink.  
  
“Wanna go?” she asks, the prospect of spending a little while doing something she loves cheering her up a little.  
  
He looks like he wants to say no and she finds it curious since he brought it up first, but before she can take it back, just in case taking her there was not his intention, he tells her to follow him.  
  


****

They find the rink empty and after they rent their skates and get out on the ice, it’s quite obvious why he seemed reluctant to come here.  
  
“You don’t know how to skate?” She’s trying to hold back her laughter as he stumbles about, trying not to fall. “You live in a state that is covered in snow almost the whole year.”

“Doesn’t mean I spend the year skating,” he complains, his nose scrunched up in concentration. Meanwhile, she twirls around him, clearly showing off. “Don’t come so close, you’ll make me lose my balance.”  
  
She laughs at how petulant he sounds. “So it took some ice-skating to bring out the Grinch in you, huh?”  
  
He laughs, looking sheepish. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I just--ack!” he flails his arms around, managing to keep himself from falling. “This is not exactly how I wanted to impress you.” 

She smiles at that and then at the look on his face when it becomes obvious he did not mean to say that out loud. Another blush spreads across his cheeks and this time she does not bother to pretend she does not see it. She skates closer to him and grabs his hands.  
  
He opens his mouth as if to argue, but she interrupts him before he can. “Trust me, just let me lead. Trust your queen.”  
  
He smiles and nods, even if he still clutches her hands for dear life. They both almost fall a few times, but after a while, she manages to get him to skate on his own. Leaving him to practice, she moves to the center of the rink. She loses herself in the movements, a big smile on her face. 

When she finally turns to see where he is, Robb is staring at her like he’s never seen anyone else like her. 

****

They’re enjoying a bland airport lunch when they get their final announcement. Their flight has been officially canceled. The good news? Flights are expected to resume the next day. People are advised to retrieve their luggage and rebook their flights. She knows how hectic all that will be with everyone running around to do just that, so they both hurry to get their bags before the line gets too long, and while they wait, she calls to rebook her flight. 

Finally with their bags in tow they make their way outside the terminal. There, standing in the middle of a crowd, everyone around them trying to catch a cab, he tells her he’s decided to stay home after all. He shouldn’t have thought about traveling in the first place, not when this is the busiest time of the year for his family and their business.  
  
She’d ask him what he means by that, what it is he does exactly, but she finds herself feeling more upset than she thought she would feel at the prospect of saying goodbye to him that she forgets all other questions.

He’s the one to speak first after a long pause. “What will you do while you wait for your flight tomorrow?”  
  
She already knows what she’s going to do. “There’s this place my brother talked about. Apparently Santa is going to be there. I plan to take my picture with him.”

He smiles at that and then opens his mouth a few times, each time looking like he’s thought better about what he wants to say, and when he finally speaks, the words are not exactly what she had been expecting. “Can I take you to a hotel?” The look that overtakes his face not even a second later almost makes her laugh. “No! I don’t mean- gods, no! I meant,” and he’s red again and this time she can’t help the smile that spreads across her face.  
  
Meanwhile, he’s still stumbling a bit on his words. “I wasn’t asking-- what I meant was--” he stops, forcing himself to take a deep breath before he continues. “I was simply offering to accompany you.”

“I know what you meant, Robb,” she’s still smiling, looking way too fondly at him that it pains her to say what she says next. “I will be alright. Thank you for the offer though. And thank you for keeping me company.” 

He nods, not pushing, and that strangely makes her wish that he would. He doesn’t, of course, because he’s been a gentleman all day, and when he gets her a cab and they stand on the curb finally saying goodbye she’s the one to close the distance between them to press a kiss to his cheek.  
  
“Goodbye, Robb of flight 404.”  
  
“Goodbye, Queen Margaery.

****

“Why didn’t I ask him for his phone number?” she asks Loras after she tells him about her day with Robb. She’s nearing the entrance to the farm and she can already see the crowd gathering. It stopped snowing by the time she got to her hotel, but it’s expected to return late during the night.

“Because you’re afraid to live a little. Because you’re not as smart as you think you are. You’re allergic to romance. Pick one.”  
  
She grumbles that he’s supposed to be making her feel better, not worse, and he retorts he’s only telling what she knows is the truth. She ends the call a few minutes after as she is led inside the farm along with the others. A guide will be with them shortly, a young girl tells them. 

The guide turns out to be none other than Robb from flight 404 and suddenly all his talk of a family business makes sense. The smile that spreads across his face when he sees her is so big that the others turn to look at her, all probably wondering who she is. They could disappear for all she cares and Margaery would not even notice. Robb wouldn’t either if the way he ignores them to go to her and pull her to the side is any indication. 

“You’re here,” he smiles. “This is the place you--”

She nods. “So this is the family business.” They stand there, staring at each other, and without thinking too much about it because she knows she’ll just end up not saying anything if she does, she gives voice to what she’s truly thinking. “I’m glad I get to see you again. I regretted not asking you for your phone number.” 

He laughs, still smiling that big smile. “I’ve been kicking myself for that same thing. I almost ran after your cab, you know, but then I figured I would never catch up and I’d just break my neck in some nasty fall.”  
  
He seems to suddenly remember the crowd he’s supposed to be guiding around the farm, but when he looks over the young girl she saw earlier is already leading them away. The girl looks at him, then at Margaery, and not so discreetly gives him a thumbs up. She smiles and smiles again at the mortified look on Robb’s face.  
  
“Sorry about that. That’s one of my sisters. The one who actually has some manners, so you probably don’t want to meet the one who doesn’t have any.”  
  
She laughs. “Actually… if you don’t mind, of course, I’d like to meet your family. You told me so much about them earlier today that I feel like I know them. Is that okay?”  
  
He smiles. “More than okay.”

****

Despite everyone being busy with all that their work entails, his whole family takes the time to properly greet her in such a welcoming way, that when they finally ask how they know each other, she almost feels bad that she has to tell them they just met today. The way they have treated her, with so much kindness and attention-- his mother offering some of her homemade cookies, one of his brothers promising to show her his pony and his youngest sister offering her one of her knitted scarfs because Margaery’s isn’t warm enough-- she knows they must think she’d been a friend of Robb’s for quite some time. 

The revelation that they just met today at the airport does nothing to lessen their kindness towards her. On the contrary, they turn kinder, more generous with their offers to show her around the farm. 

She eats cookies and sips on hot cocoa while sitting down on a hay bale, the projector set up in one of the farms showing one of her favorite movies. Robb sits next to her, and she doesn’t know who reaches out first, but by the middle of the movie, he’s holding one of her hands, his thumb tracing invisible shapes along the inside of her wrist. It’s a good thing she’s watched this movie before as she has trouble focusing on anything but his touch. The butterflies that had only stirred earlier are now moving with such speed and strength she feels they might break her ribs at any moment. 

Robb excuses himself a few minutes before the end of the movie and she goes outside the barn to wait for him after the credits start rolling. It’s night already and she knows she will have to leave soon. Fortunately, the Stark family has promised to give her a ride to the hotel. They had insisted she stayed with them and she would have accepted, but her flight was early in the morning and the hotel was closer to the airport. 

She hears footsteps and turns to see Robb coming back. He’s holding something in his hands, something shiny, and when he moves closer she sees it’s something small covered in Christmas wrapping paper. 

“What’s that?”  
  
“A present for you,” he says, taking one of her hands and placing the gift on her palm.  
  
She smiles up at him and pulls at the wrapping paper to reveal a simple rock inside, a paper taped to the round surface, and on the paper, a few words scribbled down in tiny letters. _Real moon rock. Authenticated by Winterfell Farm’s own Santa Claus._

She gasps and then laughs, and when she looks at him the smile on her face is big enough to make her cheeks hurt. “My silly present. Thank you, Robb.” She steps closer, intent on kissing him, but the crowd inside the barn starts coming out and she decides against it. 

****

She regrets not kissing him then when it becomes clear she will not have another moment alone with him. She can’t even consider it when she’s dropped off at her hotel, not with his sisters and friend Theon looking out the windows at them as they say goodbye. 

Robb, with his hands inside the pockets of his heavy winter jacket, looks ready to murder them, but he gives her his full attention when she says his name.  
  
“I know where you live and I have your phone number. You have mine. Let’s stay in touch, yeah?”  
  
He has that same look he’s had all day long, like there’s more he wants to say, but like all the times before he seems to decide on something else. “I’d like that. Let me know when you land?”  
  
She nods, she will, and this time when she leans close to press a kiss on his cheek, he turns his head to press one as well.  
  
That is how she says goodbye to Robb Stark for the second time today.

****

Less than a week later, just a day before Christmas Eve, Sansa brings him a package to his room.  
  
“This just arrived for you.” He’s about to tell her to put it on the table when she adds in a singsong voice. “ _From Margaery._ ”

He all but leaps from his chair and takes the package from her hands, only waiting for her to leave the room before he’s tearing at the package. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting, but it’s definitely not a brand new copy of his favorite book of poetry. Where did she find one? The author wasn’t even that famous to find a used copy on eBay.  
  
There’s no note inside, no letter, so he opens the book and sees something that has been written inside. On the first page where the simple words “This is for the dreamers” were printed, the words were crossed out and now it said: 

_For Robb, the man who gave me a piece of the Moon. Thank you for reading and finding joy in something created with all my love._

It was signed with the author’s name, Myrtle Regal Ray. And underneath it read the following:

_It’s an awful name, isn’t it? But try getting something better when looking for an anagram of my real name -- Margaery Tyrell._

And in smaller letters at the bottom of the page, there was a question.  
  
  


****

  
  


She picks up even before the phone is able to ring twice. She’s been waiting for his reply for days, ever since she took her brother’s advice to live a little, to let romance in her life. 

“Hi.”

“So you got the book.” It’s not a question, she knows he got it today, she herself got the notification when the package had arrived at its destination. That had been just a few minutes ago. 

“Why didn’t you tell me it was your book?” He doesn’t sound angry, just curious. 

“I don’t know. I think--” she stops, wondering why she did not organize her thoughts before when she knew he’d be asking her this at some point. “I suppose I wasn’t ready for you to know me like that. Having read that book you now know me more than I know you. And after, when we were at the barn after you gave me my moon rock, I decided I would tell you. Then I just decided I would surprise you with a new copy instead.”  
  
He is quiet at the other end of the line and she knows he must have questions. He probably wants to ask why she never wrote again, but he decides not to ask and for that she is glad. They have time. Hopefully, they’ll have all the time in the world after this phone call.

“You asked me a question.”

She did. On the same page she had revealed herself to be the author of his favorite book, she had asked him a question.

“Ask me again. I want to hear the words from you.”

She does not hesitate. “Would you like to be my king consort?” Oh, it sounds even more silly when she says the words out loud, but he’s smiling, she can practically hear it, and it makes her smile too. “So what is your answer?”

“Yes. Of course, it’s yes.” 

She knows maintaining a long distance relationship won’t be easy, but she wants to try. “You could stay at my castle when you come to visit me if you like.” 

He’s silent and she bites down on her lip, wondering if she moved too fast there, but when he speaks his tone has changed, his voice barely a whisper. “I’d like that.” And then, with a teasing tone, he adds, “I’ll even call you my queen during my stay.”

“At all times?”  
  
“Uh huh, at all times.”

They both laugh and even when they quiet down, the silences between them are comfortable ones, filled with the promise of future calls and visits. 

Margaery has never been one to believe in Fate, but this is the story of how Fate sent her so many signals she had to finally listen.

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it to this note, thank you for reading!! I don't normally write modern Robbaery, but this was fun :)


End file.
